


Lean On Me

by luladannys



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Librarians Fic Week, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 03:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luladannys/pseuds/luladannys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The 5 times Jacob Stone was used as a pillow + the 1 time he accepted that he needed someone to be his."<br/>Requested by crinoline-gremlin</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5 Times

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I'll have something for every day of fic week, but I received three prompts so I'll at least be posting those!

_Lean on me, when you're not strong_  
_And I'll be your friend  
_ _I'll help you carry on_

_**i.** _

Jake was sixteen and his sister was nineteen. She would usually rub it in his face that she was an adult and he was still a baby, but today she clearly felt very small.

She was heartbroken and Jake had never wanted to punch a person in the face more than he did as his big sister wept against his chest. He was still shocked that she had come to him and not their mother or their other sister. Maybe he would ask why later, but from the body-shuddering hiccups that she was releasing right now, it was obvious it would be a while before she could speak again.

She cried herself out and eventually fell asleep on him, her face resting on the shirt that was soaked through with her own tears. Jake looked at the clock next to his bed. It was late. He had homework to do.

With a sigh, he settled himself back to lean against the headboard. It wouldn't be comfortable but he didn't want to risk waking her. This would be him paying her back for all the times he had climbed into her bed when he was little. It was his turn to take care of her. Everything else could wait.

  
_**ii.** _

There was a NATO counter-terrorism colonel drooling on his shoulder. Granted, this was the least strange thing that had happened to him that day, but it was still something he had never expected.

Baird released a faint snore and Ezekiel turned from the front seat with a snicker. When the thief raised his phone to take a picture, Jake slapped it out of his hand. The phone bounced off of the center console and fell underneath the passenger seat.

Ezekiel started complaining as he struggled to reach his hand underneath the seat and Cassandra scolded him, telling him that he had better not wake up Colonel Baird. It was safe to assume that she would be a light sleeper, but she did have a pretty rough day.

It's a testament to their growth as a team that she's allowing herself to snooze on his shoulder and Jake feels mighty honored to have Colonel Eve Baird's drool on his shirt.

  
_**iii.** _

Of all the roles that Jacob Stone had played so far, the only one that stood a fighting chance against Librarian for his favorite was his role as Uncle Jake.

It had been a few months since he had last seen his nieces and nephews during his fleeting visit to Oklahoma at Christmastime. He missed the little rascals all the time. He would often find little trinkets and toys around the world that he knew they would love, but he couldn't buy them. It would inevitably lead to questioning from his family about where exactly he had gotten those things. So, his bag held Barbie dolls and toy trucks instead of handmade wool finger puppets from Peru or beautifully detailed wooden rocking horses from Slovakia.

They loved what he had brought, of course, but Jake wished for the day that he could bring them exotic gifts and tell share stories of culture with them.

He took all the kids off the hands of his sisters and their husbands, letting them go for a night out. The youngest, a little shy of two years old, crashed out early and Uncle Jake’s herd was down to three. They animatedly played with their new toys until the excitement wore off and left them in a heap on the floor.

There was one nephew on his stomach and a niece tucked under his arm with her head on his shoulder. Another nephew had chosen the weird position of draped across Uncle Jake’s legs, where he risked the chance of getting kicked by the other boy. Jake would not be moving until these kids’ parents came home to rescue him. He hoped that the youngest one wouldn’t wake in the bedroom where he had put her down.

As his nephews and niece slept all over him, Jake filled their heads with stories of art and history and, most importantly, magic.

  
_**iv.** _

It was hard to deny Cassandra’s pouty face. Jake had learned that long ago, as had Ezekiel and Flynn. The only people who managed to fight its power were Baird and Jenkins. Today, though, Baird was losing the battle as the pout was paired with the actual sound of a dog crying.

Jake wasn’t sure if it counted as stealing if it was a living thing, so he classified Ezekiel taking the dog from the local police station as a kidnapping. They had needed it to help trace the scent of a chupacabra and the poor German shepard ended up getting bitten by the thing before Baird could take it down.

Baird wanted to take the dog to an animal hospital and leave, but Cassandra didn’t want to leave it alone because they were the ones who had put it in danger in the first place. Another pained whine from the dog and a glossy look coming over Cassandra’s eyes threw the Guardian over the edge. They would stay with the dog.

While they waited at the animal hospital, the three young Librarians sat silently with the injured animal across them while Baird gave a cover story to the receptionist. His tail wagged lightly against Ezekiel, who had become his friend even though he was the one who had dognapped him. Cassandra held a handkerchief to the wound, while rubbing his belly and telling him what a brave boy he was. His head rested on Jake’s lap and broke the man’s heart with every howl of agony.

Jake scratched the dog behind the ears and received a nuzzle in return. When the crying stopped, Jake was afraid that the animal had died on them, but he had just gotten relaxed. A slobbery tongue slid across Jake’s hand.

  
_**v.** _

Jake’s past of dealing with intoxicated men is not great. There was his father, who he had been called to drag out of bars many a time, and there were his friends from high school and the rig, who got rowdy instead of angry like his father. Neither situation was very fun to deal with.

A drunk Flynn Carsen, on the other hand, actually was pretty fun. He didn’t try to start any fights and he didn’t start yelling at people for any reason. He just laughed a lot...and hard. So hard that he toppled backwards off a barstool before Jake could catch him and then laughed even harder as he laid on the floor.

They had gone out for a little celebration of a case they had completed together. Baird had looked between them suspiciously and declared that the two of them going out drinking together would only lead to trouble. Jake had pointed out that the Guardian should be glad it was him going out with Flynn and not Ezekiel. She couldn’t argue with that and simply made them promise to be careful.

Neither of them thought the night would go on as long as it did or that they would drink nearly as much as they did. As Flynn boisterously recounted the tale of the time he faced time travelling ninjas, everyone who overheard believed him to be spouting drunk nonsense.

When they finally got themselves to leave, Jake tossed his keys in his hand and decided that driving would not be a good idea for either of them. Knowing just what kind of consequences it would have, but that it was the safer alternative, he pulled out his phone and clumsily scrolled through his contacts.

They leaned against the wall while they waited, mostly because Flynn was having trouble staying upright without a little help. One moment he had been explaining in detail the migration of the American tree sparrow as one of the birds in question watched them from atop a lightpost across the street and the next he was snoring loudly. Jake chuckled as the older Librarian started to slide sideways down the wall and tugged him back. Flynn sagged against him, his head on Jake’s shoulder.

When Baird pulled up in her pajamas, she looked understandably annoyed, but cracked a smile when she saw the scene.


	2. 1 Time

_For, it won't be long  
__Til I'm gonna need_  
_Somebody to lean on_

 

**i.**

Jake had never been a big fan of the ocean. Maybe it was because he had lived just about all of his life landlocked in Oklahoma. Maybe it was because of the time his uncle had shown him _Jaws_ when he was only five years old and subsequently left him clambering into bed with one of his older sisters for two weeks straight.

Being on a little fishing boat in the middle of the Baltic Sea would not be going on Jake’s list of favorite moments as a Librarian. They were simultaneously being thrashed around by rough, towering waves and being poured upon by cold sheets of rain. Baird was at the helm, steering them further into the harsh waters. Flynn had a handheld telescope that he used to look for the water dragon that was wreaking havoc. A water dragon seemed like an oxymoron to Jake, but he wasn’t voicing that opinion due to fear of throwing up if he so much as opened his mouth. Ezekiel seemed indifferent to the situation entirely, sitting against a pile of rope and fiddling with the magic detector that Jenkins had given him back during their case at the STEM fair. Cassandra was standing about a foot from Jake, gripping the edge of the boat just like he was, but from the look on her face as the salty mist blew her hair back, she was actually enjoying this boat ride from hell.

They hit a wave that actually made the boat skip, like a pebble tossed across a still lake, and Jake lost all the composure he had managed the muster. His head hung over the dark water as he threw up. A hand covered one of his and another started rubbing his back. He started to slump against the edge of the boat, but Cassandra moved the hand over his own to take a hold of his cheek and make him face her. She pushed back the hood of his plastic poncho and felt his forehead with the back of her hand. He tried to shrug it off to convince her he was fine, but another jolt of the boat sent his stomach reeling.

Cassandra slung one of his arms around her neck and gently lowered both of them to the soaked floor of the small vessel. She dropped his arm, then wrapped one of her own around his back to hold him against her side. She was so much smaller than him and he knew that him leaning against her probably looked ridiculous, but he was in no condition to fight it. Jake let his head fall on her shoulder and the feeling of her fingers running through his wet hair relaxed him enough to almost forget that they hadn’t even reached the halfway point of this mission yet.


End file.
